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[Rocky] had never given much thought to the concept of being alone. It was hard to feel lonely while back home. There was always someone nearby, a relative, a stranger, a colleague, and of course, his beautiful mate [Adrian]. He didn't REALLY think about what it would mean to spend years off planet--When he applied for the mission he was only thinking of their collapsing future. It was an impulsive decision to send in his application--but one that he didn't regret. One that [Adrian] cursed at him for days until they finally collapsed into each other, vibrating with fear. [Adrian] knew why he had done it. They'd talked about having a family once--growing a future together. And now it was all at risk. Everything was at risk.
When they called for him, pulling his application from thousands of others, he could have turned it down. But, he hadn't. Instead he went through three years of brutal, intensive training to prepare for the reality of long term space travel. Training which many others dropped out or were eliminated from until the numbers had been narrowed down to the final twenty three crew members who would take the Ship to Save their Star to the one place that may have the answers. And bring back a solution.
When they completed their training, [Rocky] proudly stood with his crew mates--they thrummed as one before all of [Erid], swearing to uphold the mission, to fulfill their duty. The insignia was carved into each of their carapaces, an eternal reminder of their promise. One that not even death could take away. [Rocky] had been chosen for a reason. He was capable. He was resilient. And he wasn't alone. The brightest minds and bravest hearts were going to board that vessel. Many of them the same ones who had helped build it.
Despite the dread he'd felt about going into space, he'd known it would be worth it. If they could find a solution to the StarEater, if they could assure a future for their planet—for [Adrian], it would be worth everything. [Rocky] could never forget the way his mate sounded the day they left—utterly beautiful and so, so brave as the crew lined up on the platform in front of the space elevator's base. [Adrian] ran to him and pressed their carapaces together in a final embrace. They became [AdrianRocky]. They vibrated in harmony—[Rocky]'s core ached knowing there was a chance it could be the last time.
"Tell me you will do everything you can to return home", [Adrian] demanded of their mate.
"You know I will,"' [Rocky] sang, "I am doing this for you, my harmony."
[Adrian] hummed sadly, "Be strong, heartsong. Come home to me."
They could have stayed in that moment for all eternity. But, then Captain [Lorrin] announced above the din that it was time to go. The ship was ready to launch.
Reluctantly, he pulled away, becoming just [Rocky] again. It seemed like every [Eridian] on the planet was there to see this historic mission's send off. Their singing was overwhelming, vibrating all around the crew members as they strode onto the space elevator. It was a very long, long, long ride up.
The space beyond the ship was an endless void, a bottomless drop into inky nothing. [Rocky] had known about the vastness in concept, had trained to cope with it. Yet nothing compared to the reality of being surrounded on all sides by nothing. No. More than nothing. A crushing vacuum of everything and nothing all at once and to listen too long was to invite madness.
The engines, on the other claw, were noisy things despite his best tinkering. But he grew to appreciate the sound, finding it meditative. Anything was better than the emptiness beyond. Rocky mostly stuck to himself— He was more than familiar with all of his crewmates, having spent the last three years alongside them. But that wasn't to say he got along with all of them. [Rocky] knew he could be stubborn, even outright demanding, especially when it came to his work. That was part of the reason why he'd been chosen out of the thousands of potential engineers. Early on in their training, he'd learned which of his crewmates he enjoyed the company of and which ones merely tolerated him and vice versa. The ship was big but it wasn't massive. There was expertly designed sound dampening but, it was still very close quarters.
So, he spent much of his time working in his room, venturing out only to grab rations or perform some needed maintenance work on some other part of the ship. There were daily team meetings he dragged himself to. And occasionally, he visited with the Captain or Navigator [Onyx], who he enjoyed chatting with. But, largely [Rocky] kept to himself. It could have been lonely but he could hear his crew mates as they moved around, as they worked and talked whether he wanted to or not.
So it was easy to hear when they started dying.
Healers [Endel] and [Sumitra] were very, very confused as they performed test after test. Scientist [Parker] could no longer keep down food. They shivered and quaked to no end, running a fever so hot it was like they were boiling from the inside out. Their body shutting down despite everything the healers tried. [Parker] keened and cried despite all the pain medication they were being given. Finally, they fell into sleep. And then never woke up. The healers triple checked that it wasn't normal sleep induced paralysis. Their vitals had dropped to nothing.
What was once 23 was now 22.
They debated on what to do with the body since the ship had no morgue. It was tradition to bring the carapace home to their family. But, what if whatever had killed [Parker] still lingered in their corpse?
[Rocky] mourned with the rest of the crew as they sent their best shot of understanding the enemy out into the void. [Parker] had been their molecular biologist.
The day after Scientist [Parker] died, Rocky emerged from his quarters by the engines to join the thrum to talk about turning around and returning home. Eventually they concluded that the mission was too important to turn back without trying everything they could.
Before they had come to terms with the death of their crewmate, their Captain became sick.
Once again the healers worked frantically to keep them alive. No one was allowed to visit just in case it was contagious. Despite the healers' best efforts, Captain [Lorrin] died two days later from a sickness no one understood. The ceremony they hold is eerily silent.
22 became 21.
The Second in Command [Obsidian] was clearly shaken--they all were. Something was killing them and whatever it was, was unknown to them.
And it didn't stop.
Two days later Healer [Endel] fell asleep and never woke again. They do not hold a ceremony.
21 became 20.
The fear that filled the ship was palpable. Every one of them was wondering, am I next? Rocky wasn't a scientist in the traditional sense. He didn't think he would be able to masterfully create a cure where none of the others could but still his mind whirred with possibilities, with what-ifs, trying to solve their impending doom.
Surely there had to be something he could do? Something he could create to fix this?
Their best minds were supposed to be focused on what was making their star sick — they had not been prepared for something like this.
They used to take turns watching each other sleep, the way they had been taught to do as pebbles. Now they confined themselves to their rooms in the vain hope that whatever it was would stop spreading. It didn't. Now they listened to each other die from afar.
[Rocky] could not sleep. Every time he tried to force himself to settle, he was startled awake by the sound of one of his crewmates wailing or keening from the pain echoing down the halls. [Rocky] took to hanging out directly next to the noisy engines. [Rocky] kept waiting for pain that never came. The anticipation of it was its own kind of torture.
20 became 19 became 18 became 17 became 16 became 15 became 14 became 13.
They'd traveled so far and yet in the grand scheme of things they'd barely gotten half way to [Tau Ceti] before they were only a shell of the crew they had once been. Everything had fallen apart. The chain of command crumbling to nothing. In death they were all equals.
13 became 12 became 11 became 10 became 9 became 8 became 7 became 6.
[Rocky] was a coward. It was something he had learned about himself as he huddled alone in his room. Not brave enough to stay next to his crew mates as they died. Not brave enough to leave his room and do something, anything. Too afraid to risk his own life despite doing exactly that by coming out here in the first place.
6 became 5 became 4 became 3. It had grown very quiet.
It took way too long before he could force himself to venture out and track down his last remaining living crewmates. If that was what their existence could even be called. One was Inventory Officer [Scarlet], and the other was [Onyx], his friend and the ship's head navigator. They were huddled together when [Rocky] found them. However when he spoke to the two of them it was to realize that they weren't coherent--they didn't recognize him, didn't know where they were or why they were here. All they knew was pain. It was like seeing his own death played out for him. Slow, miserable painful death. He had a half formed thought of trying to put them out of their misery but knew he didn't have the bravery to do such a thing. So, instead he watched them slowly die. Did what he should have been doing a long time ago--He brought them food that they didn't eat and tried to soothe them with words that they didn't understand anymore.
[Rocky] did everything he could stay to awake. He couldn’t fall asleep now. Not when his crewmates needed him. Not when there was a chance of never waking up again. But he had to leave them as he went out to perform some routine maintenance on the ship and when he came back it was to find that [Onyx] had died while he was gone. Now utterly still, no longer singing with pain. It was just him and the inventory officer who [Rocky] had barely known before this. And now he never would.
[Rocky] tried to hum soothingly to his dying crewmate as they quavered in pain, ignoring the fear that tried to close his vocal chords. Against his will, [Rocky] felt exhaustion taking hold of him. He hadn't slept in days. The inventory officer wasn't moving anymore and [Rocky] barely sensed life in [Scarlet], their song so weak it was hardly audible.
[Rocky] felt the wave of sleep as it tried to drag him under. Oh no. Oh no. He was going to die. It seemed inevitable. almost right, that he would die alongside his crewmates.
They would be a ghost ship. A failed mission.
[I'm sorry, Adrian.] He mournfully called as darkness overtook him.
Except he did wake up. And he woke up alone. [Scarlet] was dead. He dragged himself back to his room. Rocky waited to die. And then kept waiting. And waited some more.
Eventually he realized he may actually not be dying. Somehow. Someway.
But, the specter of death hung over the entire ship.
At first he talked to himself a lot. Just to hear something besides the terrifying quiet, the lonely emptiness. He sang out, imagining briefly that the returning noise was another person. [Eridans] had evolved hearing each other's songs alongside their own--the combined vibrations creating a more thorough, lively perception of the world. With no one there, it was just their own song echoing back to them. It worked but it was so much lesser than the thrum— and eventually, listening only to ones own song was maddening.
He grew to hate the sound of his own voice. Took to being as quiet as possible as he went about his routine before huddling in his room.
Why am I alive? He wondered, over and over again.
Why me and not Captain [Lorrin]?
Why me and not the Scientist [Parker]?
Why me and not [Onyx]?
Why me and not any one who would be able to actually make a difference?
[Rocky] had been brought aboard to help the crew in anyway he could, engineering whatever they may need to solve the StarEater crisis. But when it came down to it, he had failed them. He was still hurtling towards [Tau Ceti]—on what essentially amounted to a now useless mission. There was no one who understood the enemy anymore. No one who knew what to do next. Just him. An engineer that hadn't been able to stop the worst from happening. He was supposed to maintain the ship and no matter what he looked at, repaired, tried to improve upon, he couldn't find what had killed everyone. Except for him.
[Rocky] may not have any idea what had spared him from the fate of his crewmates. But, he was smart. He hadn't died yet — so despite the urge he had to just continue wandering the halls endlessly until he dropped dead, he knew he had to err on the side of caution.
So that was what he did--the one thing he could do: Survive. He worked on ensuring that everything of importance was wired through his workshop, allowing him to control the base functions of the ship from the comfort of his room. He carried as many rations and xenonite as he could fit into his storage. Then he waited and kept his claws busy so that he didn't go insane.
The ship's detectors go off, startling him from his busy work--they indicate that he had reached [Tau Ceti]. Way sooner than they had expected to. But too late for it to be useful.
He knew how to fly the ship but he wasn't the Pilot--he'd done a thousand simulations but actually flying was limited. So, it took a bit of finagling until finally the Ship is positioned near the line of star eating microbes that light up hot in a glaring line across his vision. He may not know what to do about the star killer--but he also didn't know how to give up either.
Not after coming this far.
Not after losing 22 people who he'd sworn to help in anyway he could. Not after promising [Adrian] he would come home. [Rocky] keeps the ship working and does as much as he can to keep busy, searching through his crewmates belongings with only a vague sort of guilt. He teaches himself how to fly the ship much more effectively, learning how to navigate. He figured out what remaining supplies there were and came to the uncomfortable conclusion that he could survive for hundreds of years here with the amount of food he had all to himself now. He takes careful, useless observations of [Tau Ceti] and the surrounding planets and watches the never ending line of StarEaters just in case there was some change that would be obvious if he just looked at it long enough. He hoped that eventually he may come across something that gave him some indication of why…why? Why was this star spared where so many others were not?
Occasionally, he'd turn the scope back on [Erid], wondering how home was faring. Were they concerned that they had yet to hear anything from the expedition? Or were they still thinking that any day now, they would return? He considered it a few times. He knew how to fly the ship now. He could turn around and go home.
But then he'd have to tell them all that he'd failed. Failed to protect the crew. Failed to solve the star killer crisis. Failed their entire planet. Failed [Adrian]. And then he'd be right back where he started but worse— watching the world collapse around them with no hope in sight. He'd promised to do everything in his power to fix this, swore it in front of the entire planet, carved the truth of it onto his carapace.
So there really wasn't a choice in the end.
[Rocky] is alone for a long, long long long time. So long that he stops really paying attention to the numbers even as he can not forget. He avoids looking at the calendar and clock. Knowing that time is slipping through his claws. Time is his enemy but it is all he has out here.
He stays in his room, crafting useless new trinkets and additions to the ship.
He stays in his room, imagining he can still hear the ghost of his crewmates walking around just under the sound of the engines when he turns them on to test they still work.
He stays in his room and wonders if [Adrian] has moved on with their life. The thought is agonizing yet he cant help but hope they have. Hope that they are happy, and do not grieve him the way he grieves the life they once had, the future they could have had. Their star was dying after all. [Adrian] should be living life to the fullest. Not wasting away the way he was, slowly but surely.
He has essentially all but given up on returning home. Exists to exist. He goes about his routine, the shallow half life that he's carved out of this monotony. It was incredible what one could get used to and despite the constant low level thrumming of fear and desperation, dread and grief that filled him, he survived. But he may as well have died along with his crew for as alive as he was.
But, then out of seemingly nowhere, everything changes.
He does the same thing he does every day. Wakes from a short, barely restful sleep. Eats. Checks on the ship's systems for any needed maintenance or repairs. Scans the surroundings of the ship, examining the void for anything out of the ordinary.
Just as he is about to pull away, he hears it on the radar. Something different. Something strange. He leans back in to examine what seems at first like a new star. How long had it been there? Had he somehow missed it the last time?
After the rest of his boring routine, he comes back to check on the miraculously appearing star later in the day. Now, he would swear that it was...wrong.
The more he focused on it, the more confused he became. It wasn't like anything natural—no meteor or asteroid, both of which he'd witnessed on several occasions as they passed. The intensity and speed was all wrong. But, the sound it made seemed familiar...almost like...the StarEater? Like the engines The Ship To Save Their Star used. But, that was impossible. Right?
He checked on the same spot of blazing sound every day until it was integrated into his routine. But, it was easily the most exciting part. It became the only thing he looked forward to.
And it kept growing..whatever it was, it was getting closer. The energy it was putting off was massive. Like a star hurtling directly towards him in a blazing glory.
Slowly, he became more certain that it was coming directly for the same sun he currently was observing. it was something…someone? Someone coming to [Tau Ceti] for exactly the same reason he was?
The closer it came, the more details his sensors could read. [Rocky] vibrated with astonishment, vents steaming as he took in evidence of some other sapient species beyond their own solar system, with likely the same exact problem as they did. They could help each other.
[Rocky] wouldn't be alone much longer.